The .gw source file format is used by GeneWeb to create a genealogy base (using the gwc command). GeneWeb is also capable of producing a .gw file, for archival or exchange.

The .gw file format is text based, machine as well as human readable, allowing for editing with any classical text editor and program manipulation.
The .gw format is the best form for archival of a base and for exchange with other GeneWeb users. GeneWeb is also capable of creating and producing GEDCOM format files, but the compatibility is not guaranteed (no information is lost as GeneWeb keep in textual notes any GEDCOM information it does not know how to handle).

With GeneWeb version 7.00, the .gw format has been augmented to allow for events (gwplus, see section General structure of a .gw file below).
At this time, a .gw file does not remember the GeneWeb version it was created with. This may change.

Warning: older versions of GeneWeb (< 7.00) cannot read the gwplus extensions of the .gw files. To alleviate this problem, the gwu command has been augmented to include an option (-old_gw) which transfers into the notes field any incompatible information.

Style guide

Text that should appear "as is" will be bold.

Words in italic are replaced by their effective value. Their first letter is uppercase, e.g. HusbandLastName

Parameters between [brackets] are optionals.

Parameters separated by '|' are alternatives: only one choice is selected.

Dates

Dates formats adhere to the european standard: dd/mm/yyyy, yyyy, mm/yyyy. An unknown but mandatory dates is "0".

Prefix modifiers can be used to specify "about", "before", "may-be" "after" etc.

Type de date

Caractère spécial

Exemple

About

~

~10/5/1990

May be

?

?10/5/1990

Before

<

<10/5/1990

After

>

>10/5/1990

Or

|

10/5/1990|1991

Between

..

10/5/1990..1991

The calendar is Gregorian by default. For Julian, add a "J" at the end of the date, "F" for French Republic, and "H" Hebrew. Exemple : 10/9/5750H

To enter a date in simple text form, prefix it with "0" between parenthesis:

0(5_Mai_1990)

Character strings

Spaces within strings are replaced by underscore "_" (except in notes and in some comments) : Marie_Julienne

ASCII uppercase follow ISO-8859-1.

Referencing a person

The same person may be referenced several times in a .gw file; as a parent, as a child or as a relation (witness, god parent, ...). LastName, FirstName and occurence number (if necessary) must match exactly for GeneWeb to establish the correspondence.

Main structure : family

The principal information structuring a GeneWeb base is the "family". A family is comprised of a Husband, a Wife and Children (note that the sex verification of husband and wife can be turned off). Personal information (DoB, etc.) is attached to children.
If a spouse does not have parents, its personal informations are inserted after its name in the family definition.

If there is no personal information associated with a person, then enter the number 0 following his LastName/FirstName which will be used as default DoB and mark that this person is not defined anywhere else. If the spouse is unknown, provide two question mark separated by a space (? ?):

Note that certain events may be described both within personal information in a fam record (#mp = marriage place) and in an fevt sub-record (#p = place of event).
The same information will appear at both places for events such as marriage. In the case of hand edited source files, the information appearing in the fevt sub-record takes precedence over the information
kept in the fam line (this means that if no information appears in the fevt sub-record, the information on the fam line will be lost).

Note that the + token in the fam line indicates the beginning of a relation description, and does not necessarily imply a marriage : the tag #nm in the fam line, or #nmar in the fevt sub-record indicates a relation without marriage.
If #nm and #nmar are absent, then a marriage is assumed.

The tag #noment in the fam line or #nmen in the fevt sub-record creates a relation event with no name,

Personal information

Personal information may appear next to a child on a fam record, or next to the spouse description of the person is not described as a child elsewhere. Personal information may also appear in relation structures (rel, see section below) if it is impossible to put it in a family structure (for example, for an adopted child).

The strict minimum for personal information is LastName, FirstName, optional occurence number and à as DoB.:

Corno Yann 0

For a child, DoB is not mandatory.

In summary DoB (Date of Birth) is only mandatory if the person is a parent, or has a DoD. In this last case, if the DoB is unknown, use 0.

If one does not know wether a person is still alive, use ? for DoD (Date of Death).

If the person is "obviously" dead (born more than 150 ago for instance) use the #od tag (evolution after GeneWeb 5.?).

If the person died in its early years, use the #mj tag.

#apubl and #apriv provide access control: Public (anybody) or Private (wizards or friends). If nothing is provided, the "If Titles" rule applies.

The kind of death may be specified with a prefix modifier:

Type of death

Special character

Example

Killed

k

k10/5/1990

Murdered

m

m10/5/1990

Executed

e

e10/5/1990

Disappeared

s

s10/5/1990

Use the #buri or #crem tags to specify burial or cremation details.

Titles

While titles are part of the personal information section, they are described here in more details for better understanding.
Titles are describer between brackets [ ] (Ooops, those brackets are full part of the format ...). If there are multiple titles, they are appended one after the other with a new bracket pair.

[ TitleName:Title:TitlePlace:StartDate:EndDate:Nth]

Each item is separated by a ':'. If no information is available, leave an empty item.

WizardPage

Wizard-noteWizard_name
timestamp # page creation date timestamp computed as the number of seconds since january 1st,1970 (unix epoch)
Free text following WiKiText format describing the wizard and his activities.
Each line begins with two spaces.
end wizard-note

Each wizard may have a page describing his activities and his background.
If the parameter authorized_wizards_notes is positionned to yes in the basename.gwf file, the welcome page will propose a link to a page showing all active wizard notes sorted in alphabetical order.